Editorial
Abstract
I’ve listened to many of you moan about the current flat NIH budgets, lack of funding, and the frustration of being a scientist in the current depressed economy. Instead of complaining to only ourselves in the scientific community, we need to make ourselves heard by politicians and the public at large. We need a pundit.
Authors
Ushma S. Neill
Abstract
The term evidence-based medicine is overused, abused, and is beginning to ring hollow. It is not that evidence (or at least of what most people in biomedicine think evidence-based medicine should strive to be) is a bad thing. Rather, there is more rhetoric about evidence than there is actual evidence to support the degree of talk.
Authors
Laurence A. Turka, Arthur Caplan
Abstract
The National Institutes of Health and many of our biomedical institutions face significant budgetary challenges that are likely to persist for the foreseeable future. The paylines for Research Project Grant (RO1) applications to the NIH will be near or below the tenth percentile, and many investigators are growing increasingly concerned about maintaining their research programs. One of the most concerning potential results of limited grant dollars is the natural tendency for researchers to propose conservative projects that are more likely to succeed, to do well in peer review, and to be funded, but that may not dramatically advance the field, and a concurrent tendency among study sections to reward proposals that are seen as safe, if uninspiring. Established and well-respected investigators may be (perhaps appropriately) given the benefit of the doubt when compared with less-established colleagues and may therefore command a growing percentage of the total available grant dollars, while simultaneously avoiding bold and potentially groundbreaking approaches. At the same time, fewer dollars are available for new investigators with unproven track records and for the expansion of newly successful programs.
Authors
Jonathan A. Epstein
Abstract
Did you know that gay men can’t donate blood, nor can they donate sperm anonymously to sperm banks? I applaud the 18 senators who have banded together to urge FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg to revisit this issue, as current scientific data on infectious diseases does not lend credence to these policies.
Authors
Ushma S. Neill
Abstract
While our eyes usually glaze over at the continued talk of health care reform, there are a few particulars that bear repeating. So many of the parties involved fail to consider the most basic and most important of all the issues: health insurance is not a luxury, it is a right.
Authors
Laurence A. Turka, Arthur L. Caplan
Abstract
The regular articles and technical advances published in this issue are an average of 9,050 words, with 8.4 display items (figures and tables). Do we always need so many words to convey a message? We think not. With this editorial, we issue a call for brief reports.
Authors
Ushma S. Neill
Abstract
Physicians in the United States have a unique appreciation of the tremendous successes and even greater potential of our health care system, yet we also endure firsthand its woeful deficiencies. In the ongoing debate about how to improve the current health care structure in the United States, our individual voices have been all too quiet. No single health care organization, nor its spokesmen, speaks for the broad range of physicians’ opinions. Rather, doctors must make every effort, and indeed have an obligation, to speak forcefully as informed participants in this important process.
Authors
Jonathan A. Epstein, Laurence A. Turka, Morris Birnbaum, Gary Koretzky
Abstract
When has an author been scooped? It sounds like a simple question, but in fact, as a recent editorial meeting unfolded, this issue became far more complex than I had thought.
Authors
Laurence A. Turka
Abstract
When US President Barack Obama declared in his 2009 inaugural address, “We will restore science to its rightful place,” many applauded. The US has led the world in research, innovation, and education in the medical sciences. The National Science Foundation, the NIH, and other government organizations involved in scientific investigations are the primary engines that have fueled this excellence over the past half century. Nevertheless, we cannot afford to assume that preeminence, or even excellence, will persist without attention and cultivation.
Authors
Jonathan A. Epstein
Abstract
In the two years that I have been Editor in Chief of the JCI, the editors and I have sent approximately 2,500 papers for external review. The referee reports that we’ve received have spanned the spectrum from incredibly insightful to completely unhelpful. Together with a longer piece immediately following this editorial, I would like to reflect on what I think makes a good review.
Authors
Laurence A. Turka
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